Covering for Reid

by Editor
October 3, 2013 at 9:32 am

https://www.smartertimes.com/1020/covering-for-reid

Here's how the New York Times covered the imperious dismissal by the Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, of a question from CNN about why the Senate does not approve a House-approved bill funding the National Institutes of Health. From a front-page news article by Jeremy W. Peters:

On Wednesday, Republican press offices, including Mr. Boehner's, and Tea Party groups circulated remarks from Mr. Reid in which he appeared to be dismissive of cancer-stricken children. (In fact, he was ineloquently making a point about the need to fund the entire government, not just parts that Republicans have selected for special appropriations bills as a way to ameliorate the effects of the shutdown.)

The Times itself doesn't appear to deem Mr. Reid's actual response to the reporter who asked about helping a child with cancer — "Why would we want to do that? — worthy of reporting. Instead, it offers itself up as Mr. Reid's apologetic interpreter: "In fact..."

Nicholas Kristof, in addressing the NIH issue in his column, ignores both the Reid remark and the House-passed bill (which House Democrats opposed). Mr. Kristof writes, "at the National Institutes of Health, two-thirds of the staff is furloughed. That means that as long as the shutdown continues, 30 children each week — many with cancer — won't get access to clinical trials. You want to tell those kids that the damage is 'minimized?'" In fairness to Mr. Kristof, maybe the House bill passed after his column deadline. But whatever you say about the House Republicans, at this point it is the Democrats blocking funding for the NIH cancer kids in order to, as Mr. Peters puts it, make "a point about the need to fund the entire government."